I READ the article "Ministers have failed public on tobacco packs'" (April 10),with interest and wanted to respond.

Firstly, youngsters don't start smoking because of the look of the packs. They start because of other factors, such as family and friends.

Secondly, plain packs would make a bad situation – in terms of the amount of counterfeit tobacco already on the streets – even worse. This is because the packs would be so much easier to counterfeit, as the criminals would effectively only need to copy one design.

Paradoxically, the criminals who ply their trade would think nothing of trying to sell to youngsters – the very group we are all trying to protect.

In my view, it would be more effective to step up education for youngsters and clamp down on the tobacco criminals with more effective enforcement and tougher sentences.

2 comments

The warning messages regarding the dangers of smoking have been out there for a long time. As I said on a different thread a short while ago, you can stand in front of 100 monkeys for 100 years explaining Einstein's Theory of Relativity but, at the end of the 100 years, they will still be monkeys. There's none so deaf as them that won't listen.

It is so upsetting seeing youngster taking up the habit. In the olden days we perhaps could be excused as many film heroes always smoked. Who are these youngsters trying to emulate? The coughing old blokes stood outside the pub?